Another walk in the woods, and Thanking God!

 Original post: (https://cowmomba.blogspot.com/2018/03/falling-down.html

Today was a gorgeous day. I finally felt up to walking back through the woods. I wanted to SEE the place I fell and the rock that landed on me. I was so shaken at the time of the fall, all I wanted to do was get home.
I knew the rock was big, and that I had fallen a fair distance. I didn't want to exaggerate, so I was pretty conservative in the descriptions of the fall. Today I have pictures, and you can see I didn't exaggerate. I was actually quite conservative in my estimates.
It freaked Tom and I both out to see the site of the fall, and the rock. It could of been SO much worse!

 The bold red circle was where I had been poking around. The lower circled rock fell from the spot it is connected to with the thin red line. The picture below is the rock that fell with me, landing on my leg.

I have my hand on the ledge where I was standing when a portion of the ledge broke off.

And, here is the tiny fairy I had moved awhile back! Safe and sound.


God was REALLY watching over me!
Psalm 91:11

Falling Down

You know that moment of utter terror, when something goes so suddenly and terribly wrong? Yeah. Me too.
 Thursday afternoon about 4:00, I took myself on a stroll through the woods. The creek is dry again, and I got off the trail and followed the creek bed back to the cliff face. (I am on the bottom side of the cliff, not the top.) I was admiring how different the creek's path is after the recent rains.

 I got to the place where I keep a wee fairy statue tucked into an overhang of a shelf , like her own little cave. (The fairy is about the size of a golf ball.) She wasn't there, so I began poking carefully around (with a stick, lest I disturb nesting snakes or other critters). I didn't find her near the shelf, so I turned carefully to look over the ledge I was standing on... and the ledge snapped off.
I fell about three and a half or four feet, turning my left ankle. The broken off rock ledge landed on my inner (right) thigh. It was about the size of a five gallon bucket, cut in half from top to bottom. If it hadn't been adrenaline, I doubt I could of moved a rock that size. I shoved it off my leg, and assessed. I could stand on the ankle, and the leg supported my weight, so I hobbled my way back to the house. I was quite shaken up, though not SERIOUSLY hurt.
  All I could think of in the nano seconds of the fall was: I am alone back here. No cell phone. I am off the path. It is hours before anyone gets home. I didn't leave a note saying I was going to walk in the woods, and even if I had, I probably would of said I was going to walk our trails. Yikes.

I got up and went to work the next morning, fueled by large amounts of ibuprofen. I try to avoid taking any drugs, but sometimes they are necessary. By Friday night, some 24 hours later... I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. Or been trampled by a pod of hippopotumi. Or fallen off a cliff into a ravine...
During the night, my right wrist asserted itself in the mix of body parts screeching. I was convinced it was broken and I should go for Xrays in the morning. I finally fell back to sleep, and by the time I awakened Saturday, I could tell my wrist is NOT broken. It does, however feel much better in a brace, and I have one. So I am hobbling about on a cloudy Sunday morning, ankle braced, wrist braced, bruised... but feeling much better than yesterday.

I have developed an action plan for future walks. First of all, ALWAYS leave a note if I am leaving the yard. It should state my time of departure and be left in a prominent spot. I need to always carry a "daypack"/ fanny pack and not JUST my camera. The pack shall have water, and probably a small air horn. IF a cell phone is available, I will take it along. As a matter of fact, I may even have one that I can charge, and use if I need to call 911. Did you know your cell phone can be out of time/ data and is still supposed to be able to dial 911?

 Sam went for a walk back to the face of the cliff. He went a bit further, and found my wee fairy where I had moved it, to a more accessible and  sheltered place along the walls of the ravine. That had been my next destination once I had searched the first location. I sometimes move my gnomes and fairies to different locations along the trails, fun little things for people walking or riding the trails to perhaps discover. As soon as I am up to it, I am going back to where I fell to take a few pictures... from the  creek bed, not the wall!

I have been "feeling my age"... something I haven't done in years. Last time I acknowledged I am not as young as I used to be was when I sprained my arm trying to do a cartwheel a number of years ago.
This getting older business is for the birds!

Having a "Bill" day....

My second son, Bill, is known for being accident prone. If he ever calls anyone and says "Guess where I am?"... the person guessing can usually count on being correct if they say "At the hospital?"

Once, he called me up and told me that his boss had brought a watermelon to work for the crew members to have at their lunch. As soon as he said this, I asked him "How many stitches?"

"What? Mom, all I said is that the boss brought a watermelon to work for us to have at lunch!"
"And I know you!" How many stitches?"
"*Nine." he mumbled. (I truly don't remember how *many stitches this incident involved.)

Today was "oil day" at my job. With only three pallets, it wasn't too bad. I was taking down five gallon buckets of tractor fluid and stacking them on a dolly to move. The buckets were about my shoulder height... and I was wrestling them down and turning and putting them on the dolly. My finger got caught between a brace of the dolly and a five gallon bucket of tractor fluid.
When I got my finger free, it was bent.. I was sure it was broken. I tried moving it.. and had free range of motion... the  misshapen portion was due to the pressure of the bucket lid pressing in on my finger. In fifteen minutes, it was almost as good as new. I do still have a blue line bruise on my finger.

After completing the oil check in, I went to work on the shipping. With the auditor due for our annual inspection any day now, I have to be sure anything that CAN be shipped out, gets shipped. Today, it included some bins that were recently removed from the front counters. they are awkwardly shaped to ship, and I had six of them going out. So I was wrapping the shrink wrap around my pallet good and tight.
The "oil day" shipment includes cases and cases of antifreeze and window washer fluids in addition to the oil.
My strong husky co-worker guys take care of the lifting, toting and putting away of these cases of fluids. But the cases may sit on one of the pallets until the guys can get to them, as happened this morning.

I am wrapping my pallet nice and snug with my shrink wrap, carefully stepping over the area where my pallet of freight is inches from the pallet of antifreeze. Round and round and round I go! It makes me dizzy on a GOOD day. Today I was even dizzier, since the awkward shapes required me to go around and around even more times.

Just as I reached the corner where I needed to step between the two pallets... my roll of shrink wrap ended. It is bound to itself at the end of each roll. I already had one foot in the air to step as I hit the end of the roll... and it jerked me up short! I stumbled over the pallet corner I was trying to step over and went flailing into the stack of trash and empty boxes nearby. Pretty much flat on my face, but breaking my fall with my right arm.

I gained my "seat"... not even trying to stand up right away. No one had seen my fall! I assessed... wondering briefly if my arm was broken. It wasn't. I did get a nasty scrape on my arm, as well as a bruised knee. My hip/pelvis area is a bit out of whack... but I am not seriously hurt.

The twins laughed as I told them about my scraped arm when I got home... Sam saying I must be having a "Bill day". Dan suggested I might need to put on a helmet.

Bill called me a short while later, and we laughed about one of his worst moments. He had a broken ankle, which he got from a "runaway pickle wagon" while at a restaurant. He had tried to save a waitress who was so petite that her cart carrying "pickle bar" refills escaped her on the incline from the kitchen. Bill tried to stop the pickle wagon, but was instead run over by it, and suffered a broken ankle.

He had had to drive Christopher's car to the local college for some reason. Chris' car had a bad door- you had to raise the door up as you closed it. So Bill punched down the lock on the car door, balancing on one foot (the other being in a cast), put the car keys into his pocket... raised the door, and shut it. On his fingers.
This happened to have been some sort of holiday at the college... no one was around.
Bill is trapped... car keys in his pocket, balanced on one foot, fingers slammed firmly into the car door... and he cannot reach the keys in his pocket with his other hand.
He yelled for help for over half an hour before someone finally came by.
And to reach the keys, the fellow had to spoon right up to Bill's body and reach around him, and fish in his pocket. The sight that comes to mind is obscenely comical.

Poor Bill.
But we did laugh at it today. And now you can too.

Have a blessed day, and thanks for reading!

Grace Strikes Again

Or is that Grace(less) is STRUCK again?

To go back to the beginning of the morning....
You know how your Mommy always tells you to wear clean undies so you (or she!) won't be embarrassed if you get in an accident ? Well, this morning it wasn't undies I had trouble with, it was socks. I looked and looked for a matching pair. With time running out, I finally settled for mismatched socks. After all, who will see them inside of my shoes anyway?

Mr C asked if I thought today would be a short day. Saturdays usually are.

I walked in to face TWO pallets. Most Saturdays, there is about 1/3 to 1/2 a single pallet of stuff. So I already knew I was there for a fairly long haul.
At about 8:45, I was on my LAST two items that I had to actually physically handle today. They happened to be wheel hub assemblies.
These were "small" as hub assemblies go. Each weighed about 8 lbs., where some of the larger ones are well over 20 lbs. I had put one into the returns tote, and just as I let go of it, the box from the second assembly came unglued.

The hub assembly was acted upon at once by gravity.

It landed on the "start" of my foot. Just where the tongue of the shoe offered a bit more padding. I'm afraid I said the word my mommy always told me not to say... the one that ends the " Poo Poo, Doo Doo, CaCa.... my Mommy always told me not to say ____"! phrase. (Sorry Mommy, I said it)
I called the boss to come back there. He was laughing as he came back, saying, "I know I'm in trouble when she says Mr. Mc_______!" He quit laughing the minute he saw I was hurt. I already had my shoe off,  and the sock. There was a bit of skin scraped off, clean through the clothes!

My foot was already starting to swell where it was hit. Boss got me some ice. (He used freezer frost, LOL)

The ice helped.

I kept my foot up on a chair, with ice off and on (On as long as I could stand it at a time) for the next 45 minutes. The swelling went down. I could stand on it, move it freely without undue pain. So nothing is broken. But I will have a nice bruise, I'm sure. I used the chair (rolling office chair) to glide over to the computer and finish up my paperwork. Got my shoe and sock back on, and gave the foot the official "stand on it and walk" test. Then I drove on home. (It is my left foot.)

I am still hobbling just a bit... but hey, it is a deep bruise!

I have kept of it since then, except necessary trips. I had a nap. After my nap, I was getting a drink in the kitchen, and asked who had left water boiling in my whistling kettle, which was boiling away, but NOT whistling. (Should of been my first clue!) It was Mr C. He was watching football and asked if I minded pouring him out a spot o' tea. So I poured. The tight fitting lid of the kettle fell off as I poured... "someone" had not pushed it on tightly! I got a mean owie owie owie steam burn on my hand.

Maybe I ought to just go on back to bed.

Really folks, I am FINE. Just a bit battered and steamed!

Dad always said he didn't name me Grace.... for a good reason!